Nothing to See Here: Republican Congressional Members’ Twitter Reactions to Donald Trump

Abstract

How do co-partisans respond to the President on Twitter? This article examines whether and how Republican legislators reacted to President Trump in five instances when he broke with Republican Party policy positions or norms. We theorize that legislators’ electoral environment, constituency, and identity shape their response to the president, and we test our hypotheses using nearly 2,500 hand-coded tweets from Republican legislators between 2018-2020. The overwhelming reaction by Republican legislators to Trump’s actions was to ignore him. When members did react to the president, their response was primarily driven by their electoral environment and identity. Those from the most Trump supportive districts supported the president, and retiring members were most likely to oppose him. Male legislators were much more likely to support and oppose the president, while female legislators mostly ignored him. And, if they reacted, the most ideologically extreme Republicans were more likely to support than oppose the president. The implications of these findings are troubling. Even when President Trump violated traditional norms or deviated from long held party positions, his congressional co-partisans remained silent, occasionally offering support but rarely opposition.